


Warm

by Egleriel



Series: Simple Things [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Free Cities, Future Fic, Pentos, Post-Quiet Isle, Tyrosh, second sons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2018-12-18 20:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11882109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Egleriel/pseuds/Egleriel
Summary: Sandor wasn't sure what sort of a mad fairytale he'd blundered into, but he didn't remember any that involved sitting in a dank hold on straw that stank of horsepiss. The fair lady next to him looked up into his face with the same shining earnestness he'd seen there years ago, when she was a girl watching knights at a tourney.He thought of her father's tourney. In the songs, it would've been her hand the victor won, not a bag of dragons scrounged up by Littlefinger.Sansa and the Hound leave the Quiet Isle seeking a new start in the Free Cities. With the baggage of their respective pasts, and the world at war, there's a balance to be struck between retaining their true identities and forging the peaceful life they both crave.





	1. A First Sailing

The wind scattered Sansa Stark's hair as she watched Crackclaw Point recede into the distance, cold damp air washing over her like relief and sorrow and anticipation.

 _It still stinks like bad eggs,_ she could not help observing. 

Four furtive days of travel had taken them to Maidenpool, along roads on which every rider could only be Ser Lothor and every man afoot could only be a Lannister stooge. There was a new lord in the Vale, they said: news of that had reached the port town ahead of them. Of the old Lord Protector, however, there was great speculation and no word whatsoever. She wondered if he even knew she was missing from the Quiet Isle. 

The Hound joined her on the gunwale, hulking and unsteady in a studded jerkin of boiled leather. There was something oddly comforting about the sight of him back in armour. He'd been dressed in a shabby brothers' robe of dun-and-brown roughspun since the day he bumped into her on the banks of the Trident. Which song did that make her think of? Was it Lady Shella, who didn't recognise her knight in disguise? Or was it one of those odd Dornish retellings of _Florian and Jonquil_  with all the details moved around?

 

"Let me guess," said Sansa over the wind, "Stranger isn't happy below decks?"

"Makes two of us," Sandor grunted.

Sansa was dreading the very thought of going down there. How would she bear this for  _days_ on end? The rolling and pitching of the deck brought her to the edge of nausea even now, with the horizons all around her and cool air in her lungs.

She waved a hand airily towards in the direction of the land of their birth. "I thought I would  _feel_ something," she admitted.  _Apart_ _from moderately queasy, that is._ "I thought..."

The Hound eyed her, frowning, somehow learning enough from her face to take her meaning without a proper explanation.

"You thought it would be like in the sailors' songs. All that shit about being torn from your homeland like a babe from his mother's teat."

"Not exactly how I would have-"

"And let me guess," he continued, lip curling in a sneer. "All you feel is sick."

"I'm all right for now," grumbled Sansa. "Why, are  _you_?"

"Like a dog, funnily enough," he said happily. "A word of advice on the songs, little bird: if someone writes a verse about the depth of their feelings, assume the reality involved a mess and a mop."

 

A cascade of agitated Valyrian behind her told Sansa she'd found the wrong spot to loiter in - again. 

"I'm sorry," she called brashly in the Common Tongue. "My husband and I were just retiring."

It was the second time since they embarked that Sansa had used that word, and for a second time Sansa caught a sparkle in the Hound's eyes. His face remained stony as ever, but she was learning just how much could be gleaned by watching his eyes - how, from time to time, the stormclouds parted for a flash of silver. No wonder he ducked behind his hair so often. Unhidden, they rendered him an open book.

There had been no twinkle in his eye when she lied their way into a berth on the  _Maiden's Fancy_. The story had flowed from her as natural as breathing. Their captain, a portly Braavosi with a hard mouth and a silver-haired young son accepted their pouch of coin almost dismissively, and bade them return at first light. She was Meera, and her new husband was Dakon; smallfolk had just the one name. They'd seen their village ruined by the Ironborn and were making for Pentos, where they hoped Dakon's uncle still had a wagon business - especially now that they'd spent their whole fortune on the passage. The  _Maiden's Fancy_ would stop at Tyrosh and then Pentos, before setting course for Braavos.

 

They'd sat up all night in the inn's common room, too mistrustful of their fellow travellers to risk sleep. If she read the lurching of Sandor's leg correctly, he was as tired as she felt. Reserving a private cabin had been far beyond their means, of course, so "retiring" gave them a choice: they could go sip wine together in the hold that doubled as a stable, or try to keep a low profile in the communal bunkroom.  One look at the hammocks there told Sansa that she'd best get used to smelling of Stranger. 'Dakon' was a full foot too tall to even contemplate comfort in one of them, and she'd invite unwelcome scrutiny if they slept apart. 

 _I can touch him again, if I want to_ _,_ she remembered. It was another benefit of his shedding the brother's robe, and heat bloomed in her belly to think of what he'd done to her last time they were alone together. The days and nights since had been a succession of muddy roads, crofters' floors and cheap inns, with too many passers-by for the kind of soul-searching and intimacy they had shared on the Quiet Isle.

As of this moment, and for the foreseeable future, she was as free as she dared to be.

 

* * *

 

 

Sandor wasn't sure what sort of a mad fairytale he'd blundered into, but he didn't remember any that involved sitting in a hold on straw that stank of horsepiss. The fair lady next to him looked up into his face with the same shining earnestness he'd seen there years ago, when she was a girl watching knights at a tourney. 

_Her father's tourney. In the songs, it would've been her hand the victor won, not a bag of dragons scrounged up by Littlefinger._

Some good the wealth had done him. The Brotherhood had left him with almost none of it, and then Arya Stark had stolen half when she left him for dead. He'd barely had enough left to pay for passage to Pentos. This shit-heap would not have been his first choice, but beggars didn't get to choose. The little bird had missed the appraising looks she attracted from the sailors of the _Maiden's Fancy_ , even mud-streaked and badly rested as she was; it was clear that some meant to make her earn part of her passage whether she willed it or no, until Sandor drew himself up behind her and almost literally rattled his sword. 

If the crew knew enough about Westerosi to wonder why a blacksmith's daughter and her husband had a sword and a warhorse, they were bright enough to keep it to themselves.

 

"How is your stomach?" asked the girl, gentle as summer.

He thought about it. "It's all right. I don't feel the rocking as much down here."

"Me neither. Maybe we're gaining our sea-legs."  Sandor doubted that, but grunted in assent anyway. "I wonder how long we'll be in Tyrosh."

" _You_ won't be in Tyrosh at all. I'll be damned if I squirrel you across the Narrow Sea only to see you carried off by bloody slavers the moment you step foot on the island."

"This is going to be like Maidenpool all over again, isn't it?  How was the company at that inn any more reputable than the docks?"

"All right, you may have a point there," he admitted.

She had wound her hand around his arm and was clinging to his shoulder as they spoke; though part of him rejoiced in the contact, another part wished she'd liberate his arm so that he could wrap it around her waist. He'd meant what he'd said, back on the Isle: he wouldn't ask her for anything she wasn't eager to give him of her own accord. It sounded like plenty had been taken from her against her will. When she was ready, he'd be waiting. That wasn't to say he didn't burn with lust every time he looked at her, but patience was one of the few virtues to which he _could_ claim.

 _She's on the wrong side_ , he realised with a jolt.

Another spike of alarm to join all the others. They'd been coming thick and fast since the evening he caught sight of her on the Quiet Isle.

It started with the reminders of who this girl was and what she represented to him, but now the shock of having her near was being replaced by something far more painful. All the little traces of _fondness_ that he was learning to recognise. Kindnesses that weren't simply Sansaand her sweet nature, but something shy and tender and just for him. Like right now, as she squeezed his arm and handed back the wineskin, and he noticed that it was his scarred side she smiled up at.

He was about to lean down and kiss her for that when a thought struck him.

 

"Tyrosh is the one with all the snail creams and other nonsense, isn't it? As well as the dyes, I mean."

"No, the snail creams are Pentos," said Sansa sagely. "Tyrosh is the dyes and the make-ups."

"Make-up. Fine. What you think are the odds that they'll have something to cover..."

With his free hand, Sandor made a circular motion to gesture at his whole face, then felt his brows knit as he watched her for an answer. Something odd happened to Sansa's face, melting through confusion, irritation, sorrow and then comprehension.

"You think you'll be recognised," she breathed.

He shrugged. "Merchants and courtiers from the Free Cities passed through King's Landing often enough. I've been looming around court for-"  _Near as long as she's been alive? Fuck._ "-long enough that someone might recall my ugly face."

He looked her dead in the eye, trepidation building with every breath. "I might need your help."


	2. A Second Disguise

He didn't ask the little bird if she was sure this was a good idea, because he'd already done so several times as they climbed through the levels of the city. With the miraculous ease of the young and the beautiful, Sansa had charmed the captain's little son into translating her questions, and so it was that a dockside courtesan directed them to a down-at-heel mummers' band, and  _they_ had gifted them with directions to the finest mask-maker in Tyrosh. It had taken her all of twenty minutes to solve the problem he'd lived with for twenty years. 

Sandor regretted chucking away the robe, now. Its hood would have made him feel less conspicuous. It was bad enough to be freakishly huge and hideously mutilated, but he hadn't braved a city since he acquired his limp. He already hated the cobbles and steep streets of Tyrosh, and the sun was barely risen.

Above them, a blue sky gaped between small fluffy clouds; the sun was warmer than he'd felt in moons back in Westeros, though the autumnal chill reasserted itself whenever they stepped into the shade. It happened often. Unlike the wide thoroughfares of King's Landing, Tyrosh was a city of alleys and overhangs. It sprawled up the sides of the hills that overlooked the harbour, and on the promontory to the west of the bay perched a fortress of smooth black stone.

 

They were making for the fifth circle, though how they'd recognise it, Sandor had no idea. Sansa bounced beside him up through the narrow streets, the swanlike gait he remembered impossible in her too-big boots. 

_First thing I buy when a bit of money comes in: clothes that make her feel like a lady._

The idea of disguising his scars had preoccupied him quite a bit as a boy. He'd considered ointments and girlish powders; sized up charlatans peddling wrinkle salves, wondering if they could do anything to make his face less of a horror. None of his surreptitious treatments made the slightest bit of difference, of course. In the end, he'd become more afraid of his comrades finding out about his insecurity than he was a lifetime of disgust and scorn. The little bird could now be counted in a very select group: those who looked at him as all that he was and was not, as opposed to looking at him despite his scars. The joy - and worse, hope - that knowledge gave him was sickeningly potent. The more he found to like about her, the less he liked himself.

 

"Why a mummers' merchant?" he spat eventually.  

The buildings seemed a little neater in this part of the city; the steps a little better-swept, the laneways brighter and less squalid. The nature of the businesses had changed too: tea-houses replaced the potshops and he hadn't seen a single whore since the last gate. The flood of brightly-coloured Tyroshi humanity slowed to a stream here. Sandor wondered how many of the people they passed were no more than  _goods_  under the local laws. The unnaturalness of it soured his stomach.

"If they can paint scars on a man's face, mayhap they can hide them," said Sansa simply. 

"Mayhap they can paint a normal face onto this mess," he sneered. Sandor knew was being difficult, and for no sound reason at all. He was shoving her away in case a chance word sounded too much like pity. It wasn't fair to her and they both knew it, but Sandor felt humiliated and there was only one direction for him to vent.

"You're the one who asked for my help," she reminded him, sullen. He felt a kick of satisfaction before the self-loathing reasserted itself.

The street opened into a small plaza where it met four others, and in the centre of it all stood a statue of some hero whose name Sandor did not know. Behind it, a red lantern hung above one townhouse doorway, drawing his eye with its aggressive flame.

"'A purple awning next to the shrine,'" Sansa quoted. "We're here."

 

* * *

 

A bell jingled as Sansa pushing into the shop, and right away her nose was assailed by the smell of greasepaint and dust. The dark-panelled walls were lined with racks and racks and racks of cloaks, gowns, doublets and robes in every shade and pattern imaginable. The garments had a curiously flimsy look to them; a disappointing cheapness that marked them as stagewear instead of real finery. Along the back wall were all sorts of headgears, from a tall feathered hat topped with a swan's head to a hood with a blank facepiece that she guessed to represent the Stranger. In a corner crammed with arms and armour, she saw Sandor examining a slender bravo's blade with a faraway look. Mannequins down the centre of the room modelled the finest pieces: the elegant robes of a Yi Tish noble, complete with a jade crown; a full suit of motley-coloured armour; a matched set of costumes for a dragonlord and his lady, doublet and gown of cloth-of-gold to match their crowns.

The owner insinuated herself into the room while Sansa was distracted by a shelf of dyes. The owner was a handsome woman in her early forties, dark-skinned like a Dornishwoman and with hair and brows dyed to a vibrant blueberry. To Sansa's surprise, the odd shade called out a gentle hazel in the woman's eyes. There's been disdain in her eyes, too, and a wrinkle in her nose, until Sansa pressed a silver wrist-chain - the last gift she'd had from Petyr - into her hand when Sandor couldn't see.

All was forgiven then: their tattered clothes, ungroomed hair, and above all the smell. It proved surprisingly easy to make herself understood despite her broken Valyrian. The owner sat Sandor under the window and transformed into a cyclone of activity, assembling a daunting arsenal of pots, brushes, dishes and jars on the sideboard next to him. Meanwhile, Sansa unspooled their sorry tale: how her father had promised her hand to a well-connected fellow merchant, but she'd already given her heart and her virtue to one of the artisans who worked for him. The spurned suitor torched their cottage in the night; despite being dreadfully burnt in her rescue, her husband had duelled the man to the death before they escaped across the Narrow Sea.

" 'Florian'?" Sandor mouthed at her in disbelief, when the owner's back was turned. Amusement tugged the corners of his mouth, which warmed Sansa's heart more than she expected it to.

"The other man was a high lord's bastard, you see," she explained breathlessly, "and his kinsmen are sure to come after us. And with Florian so badly burned, they're sure to recognise us..."

She decided a sob would be a bit too much.

 

The Tyroshi had mixed together something that looked like thick paint, holding the palette experimentally against Sandor's good cheek and turning it this way and that in the light. She kept adding dabs of dye and sprinklings of powder until it took on an unpleasant, gluey-looking texture - though the colour toned quite well with Sandor's complexion. The owner bade Sandor hold a semicircle of greasepaper to his face, and when she was satisfied of its fit into the contours of his eyes and cheek, she waggled a finger while admonishing him in Valyrian, in a tone that clearly indicated that she wanted him to sit still. Then, with a small brush, she began to paint globs of the mixture onto the paper. 

"Why can't she just paint this shit straight onto my face?" complained Sandor, before the owner hissed him into silence.

"It would settle right down into the cracks and stick," Sansa guessed. "I think she means for you to peel it off and put it on as you need it."

Sansa turned out to be right, though her apprehension was growing: the flat matte layer would look no more like normal skin than Sandor's scars did. It would make him less readily recognisable, for certain, but was not quite the effect she'd hoped for in coming here.

Once the gluey mixture had dried, the owner fished out a bottle with what looked like a small bellows attached to the top. Sansa gasped as the dewy spray added the instant illusion of texture that had been so missing from the flat skin-coloured mask. With tiny points of colour, the artist - for there could be no other word, now - swapped out bottle after bottle to introduce pores and freckles, hollows and highlights, and a general illusion of normality that would withstand a moment's scrutiny. 

 _Not more than a moment or two, of course, but... it's_ so  _much better than it was a few minutes ago._

The autumn sun climbed higher outside. When satisfied that the finishing touches had dried, the Tyroshi pulled away the mask and began to furiously brush a clear varnish onto the back. She clipped the ragged edges and showed Sansa how to apply the oil that would fix it to Sandor's face. Finally, carefully, Sansa got a chance to practice. She sprayed the oil onto a brush and seated herself so close to Sandor she might as well have been in his lap. An awkwardness passed between them when their eyes met. He looked away, shyness heating the good side of his face, and Sansa recognised his acquiescence.

 

The job was done more quickly than Sansa might have expected. The owner handed Sandor a looking-glass, and she saw him jerk his head this way and that in the light, his mouth pressed tight with worry. Then the Tyroshi pulled Sansa away to supply her with two jars of the fixing-oil and some more half-understood instructions on how to store and use it. She impressed upon Sansa the need to use the mask sparingly; the importance of keeping it away from any liquid bar water; the fragility of the mould and the ease with which it could be torn, stored carelessly. It was not to be used every day. As a final token, the woman shoved a bottle of vivid dye into Sansa's hand with an enthusiastic gesture at her hair, refusing any further payment.

When Sansa turned back, Sandor was still seated beneath the window. He did not appear to have moved a muscle, still staring into the looking-glass with a hunger she had never seen before. With the mask actually  _on_ , Sansa could finally appreciate its full effect. The change was  _remarkable._ Now, with Sandor's face to animate it, the mask mimicked real skin far better than Sansa would ever have guessed. The unevenness of the cheek underneath was camouflaged, though still perceptible to Sansa's eye. It did not look strange or wrong or uncanny as she had feared. The mask's edges were hidden cleverly in the natural folds of his face, nestling into the creases of nose and jaw. The only visible join ran down the forehead above the absent eyebrow, looking for all the world like a silvery scar in its own right. There were still burns visible above Sandor's ruined lip and down his neck, and the missing ear and hair could not be helped, but otherwise...

 

* * *

 

 

_There's a face some woman could have loved, if it was attached to a better man._

Sandor cradled the looking-glass in his hands, peering at the queer sight of his own face made near-symmetrical. He'd known his own damn reflection as a boy, but never as a man. Never like this. He'd imagined what his face might look like whole, but as he'd grown older he'd found it harder and harder to picture himself without scars.

Sandor was surprised to find he resembled his father.

 _And Gregor, of course_.  That stung. Same eyes and nose, but Gregor's brow and jaw were both heavier. 

He swallowed a lump in his throat. He was not handsome, would never have been handsome even without the burns, but it had hurt him to see the wonder on the little bird's face with the cracks covered up. How could it not? His true face could only ever be a disappointment after this. There was a good chance she'd never want to see him without the blasted mask on, from today. That was reason enough to tear up the damned thing, even without the odd fishy smell of the paste and the maddening itch of trapped sweat that was starting up in the cracks of his scars.

 

"Florian?" said the little bird timidly, maintaining the pretence. The room returned, and Sandor was alarmed to find her bent next to him, her hand on his arm.

_How long was I sitting here?_

With hoarse thanks for the Tyroshi, Sandor bent his head and stepped out into the daylight. He could tell from the little bird's hopping that she was desperate to say something to him. It would be a question, no doubt. Some innocent courtesy that would make him dredge up the darkest truths in his worthless soul, as usual. With the turmoil in his head he knew it would be more than he could bear. Like the boor he was, he'd already spoken harshly enough to her this day and didn't trust himself to keep his temper in check, not with his mind so muddled.

Too selfish to allow whatever question she so badly  _needed_ to soothe her own feelings, Sandor cut her off before she began.

"Boat doesn't leave till sundown. We should find those famous Valyrian baths."

Sansa froze for a moment to stare at him, plainly confused. He didn't dare meet her eyes, not even after she scurried behind him to catch up with his stride. A lifetime's unfailing co-ordination did not let him down in this moment as he shot out a hand - eyes still forwards - to seize her little hand.

"I mean to take you out to dine, little bird," he declared gruffly, "and we ought to smell as sweet as we look."

 


	3. A Third Promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An interlude in the streets of Tyrosh, since the bathhouse chapter was getting unwieldy!

"What's a Valyrian bath?" Sansa asked. She could feel the consternation twisting her face. _It's as though he goes out of his way to keep me off-balance_.

 

Even with his infamous anger tamed, Sandor Clegane was still proving a very difficult companion. Sansa could admit to her herself that it was a source of some disappointment. Where was the gentle, sad man who had drawn her so strongly on the Quiet Isle? She could not work out just what had shaken Sandor's temper since they took to the road: of course returning to the world had to be perturbing for him after six moons of silence, but it did not escape her that her own presence - and the nature of their connection, most like - was unfamiliar to him too.

It wasn't in Sansa's nature to see the symptoms of pain without wanting to find their cause; she wished to learn his reasons, though she did not assume they would excuse his attitude. 

 

"The Dragonlords built them wherever they found hot springs," said Sandor, striding on without ever turning towards her. His huge hand held hers softly, despite the roughness of his tone. He spoke in a bored sort of way, as if he didn't particularly care whether she was listening. "Imagine a natural pool the size of the Dragonpit and you'll be halfway there."

"Halfway there? What aren't you telling me?"

"You'll see." Though his tone remained flat, he squeezed her palm gently.  

 _This surliness is just another mask,_ she thought suddenly.  _One he's been wearing all his life: hiding whatever it is he's feeling and walling himself off from anyone who tries to understand him._

 

"Yes, but _what_ will I see?" she asked coquettishly, trying a new tack. "Even you aren't so big you need a bath the size of an arena."

Embarrassment flooded Sansa as she appreciated the _other_ implication of her jest, and she was under no illusion about which meaning drew Sandor's throaty laugh. "Can't argue there, little bird," he mused, "though I doubt you'll find any cause for complaint where my size is concerned."

"If it's a bath, then... we'll be _naked?_ Together?" she squeaked.

That laugh again, and finally Sandor looked at her. The strangeness of seeing him without obvious burns made her jump, though she hoped he hadn't noticed. "Do you highborn ladies bathe differently from the rest of us? Of course we'll be naked," he smirked, teasing again. "It won't be just us, though. Might be you'd prefer it if we were?"

 

Sansa's mouth opened but she could find no appropriate response, and in her hesitation she felt the Hound's mood shift abruptly yet again.

_'I won't ask for anything you aren't eager to give me,' he'd said on their last night at the Isle, eyes searching hers in the firelight. 'If you want nothing, then that's what I'll want too.' The man who said that is somewhere under those masks, along with that angrier man who once promised to keep me safe._

 

"Then again, might be you'd prefer if I weren't there at all," he added bitterly. "One of these Tyroshi striplings might be better suited to a pretty little bird, with their sweet accented voices and all their brightly-coloured feathers."

He hadn't let go of her hand, though, and Sansa took some reassurance from that, determined to get him chuckling again. He had voiced her own thought, in point of fact. Tyrosh was missing the broad shoulders and strong frames Sansa had come to expect, leading a life surrounded by highborn fighting men. The flower of Tyroshi manhood tended towards the lithe rather than the brawny, and Sansa was surprised to discover how strongly she preferred the latter - especially when the idols of her girlhood had been slim and fine-featured in spite of their toil on the training ground. 

"I've had quite enough of slender men with prettier faces than me, thank you. The colours are quite interesting, though. I think you'd look very fetching with emerald-green hair."

 

She looked up at him, seeing the unburnt corner of his mouth moving with what she hoped was amusement. Then he ducked his head in unmistakable shyness and Sansa recognised how badly she'd miscalculated. She cursed silently. Of course she should've known his appearance was off-limits just now. It was too tender a spot - that was  _obvious._ How could she have thought-

But no. That was the whole point, wasn't it? That, as confused as he must be feeling about Sansa painting a mask onto him, the best thing she could do was show that for her, it changed nothing. She was always teasing him for being enormous and grumpy, the same way he teased her for being small and dreamy. If she stopped, she confirmed that fear she glimpsed from time to time: that how he looked _mattered_ to Sansa, even a little. Sansa untangled her fingers from his and moved her grip to his biceps, pressing her body close against his arm, determined to prove him wrong. 

 

* * *

 

 

Sandor glanced down at her, finding his temper strangely quietened by the softness of her breast against his arm. He let his newly-freed hand creep around her waist, and she allowed it, leaning her head into him as they passed from the plaza into another street. The maelstrom in his chest was soothed by her touch, all the fear and hurt muting as he let himself enjoy the moment instead.

Because for all his churlishness and despite his tendency to lash out, the truth of it all was that he missed the little bird. He missed what they'd begun on the Quiet Isle, missed the gentle momentum that had been building between them before they left the septry. On the road and aboard the  _Maiden's Fancy_ , she'd slept in his arms, sighing when he pressed a kiss into her hair and wriggling unselfconsciously into him in the mornings, despite the hardness that pushed into her back. Yet neither of them had made any move to cross the distance again.

On Sandor's part, it was simply cowardice. He was no stranger to frustrated longing - if anything, he was more comfortable with it than he was with showing affection. At first he'd been afraid of making the little bird think his protection was conditional on her attentions. He'd reassured her otherwise, right from the start, but a man's deeds spoke louder than his words. And then time had passed and the fear of rejection had reasserted itself. Their travels had given the girl time to stop and think about their arrangement - stop and think about what she  _actually_ wanted from him now that they'd left the odd situation that had thrown them together. After all, Sansa knew that he wanted her, and knew exactly what he had to offer her, and _she_ had not turned to _him_ either.

The gentle affection she'd shown him, of which her current closeness was just one example, reassured him that there was still interest on her part. He was at the mercy of his insecurities and bitterness until one of them tried something, but she'd left him enough hope to keep him patient while she set the pace. When she was ready, he'd be there.

 

"Not a fan of emerald green, I've got your Imp to thank for that," he said finally. In his peripheral vision he saw Sansa grimace, and gave her hip the gentlest squeeze. "And that bright blue the merchant was wearing would look ridiculous too. How about a hot pink?"

A short, tinkling laugh blurted from Sansa and he felt his belly tingle again, delighted as usual by any response he could get from her. 

"You must make sure you tell me before you make any of these big decisions," she scolded. "I should hate for us to clash."

"Always an eye on the bigger picture, little bird," he growled approvingly. 

"How do you know where you're going, anyway?" Sansa chirped. 

He pointed by way of an answer: up the hill yonder, where a waterfall cascaded from the highlands beyond the city.

" _That_ runs down into a network of channels raised above the streets, and the baths are somewhere near there. Should be obvious once we get nearer. It's one of the Nine Wonders made by man, didn't your maester teach you about it?"

"I suppose not," shrugged Sansa. "They must be a particularly fine set of baths to be singled out so."

Sandor chuckled. "Never thought I'd see them with my own eyes."

_Certainly never thought I'd be bringing a woman there. If someone told me I'd be bringing the most beautiful lady I'd ever set eyes upon, and that she'd be clinging to my arm and looking up at me like this, I'd think they'd taken a hit to the head._

He resisted the urge to reach up and touch the mask. With  _this_ on, it might not even look like the girl was raving mad for cosying up to him. A passer-by would look at them together and scoff that a girl like  _her_  could find a finer man. They'd be right: he might be whole, but he was not handsome. It tormented him already, the thought that this strip of glue and paint likely made his touch easier for her to bear. More than that, he hated the fear that without it - as the Sandor he truly was - he would be  _less_  in her eyes than he was right now. Most of all, he hated the knowledge that when he took it off, he would be less in his own eyes, too.

 

The little bird gasped appreciatively when the bathhouse fell into view. Even calling it a 'bathhouse' seemed wrong: it was as different from the communal baths in the great castles of Westeros as was the Clegane keep from Casterly Rock. A vast colonnaded edifice of pink and yellow stone took up an entire side of the open square, torrents of cold water rushing down the columns from openings at roof level. At the base of the columns, the water crashed into pipes that drew it away underground. The hot water had to be draining away beneath them too, for the square had a muggy, humid feel about it. Naked children splashed in a huge fountain at the centre, in which a portly stone figure 12-feet-tall toted a jug and wine-cup as he cavorted with nymphs and dryads. 

"That's the Fountain of the Drunken God," Sandor told Sansa. "The Valyrians used to hold their slave-markets in this square before they built that great auction-house down by the docks."

From the way Sansa swallowed and glanced about her, he could tell she felt as uncomfortable with the practice as he did. Her hand slid back into his as they crossed the plaza, and a pleasant shiver ran up his arm at the contact. He leaned down to her ear once they'd climbed the steps to the portico, passing her a square silver coin from his pocket.

"This is where I leave you, little bird," he said, leaning down to speak into her ear. "Separate doors for men and for women. Separate baths, too, if you prefer, but you still have to pass through the main pool."

"See you on the inside?" she asked, still looking nervous.

Sandor gave a nod and smiled without thinking, then wondered what he looked like as he did so.  "And little bird?" he called after her. "Promise I won't look if you don't."

The girl's eyes widened in shock and she blushed deeply, then dipped her head and scurried off. Sandor grinned for true.  

_If I'm any judge, we'll both be getting our looks after all. Masks or no._


	4. A Fourth Embrace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluffy towels at the ready.

The columns soared overhead to meet a painted ceiling, walls rising in a dream of pink and yellow bricks. The air tasted clammy here. Sansa took her place in the line for the turnstile. A stream of patrons issued from an open door next to the entrance: well-dressed and shabby, short and tall, with nothing uniting them but damp hair.

Sansa passed the first turnstile to enter an antechamber with a desk. Watching what the locals did, she waited her turn and then handed over her coin like all the others had done.  _Unlike_  he'd done with the others, the cashier held her coin between a finger and thumb and fixed Sansa with an impassive stare. He gestured vaguely towards a line of simply-dressed attendants, saying something in Valyrian that Sansa could not understand. An answer was plainly expected, but Sansa was at a loss. The verb for "to want" was in there somewhere, but beyond that... she could do no more than shrug blankly.

 _I've paid too much,_ Sansa realised.  _I've paid enough to have a servant attend me_.

The cashier said something to his co-workers that made two of them step forward: a red-haired man and a girl with dusky skin and golden eyes. He looked back at her for another answer.

Thinking about it, Sansa hadn't bathed alone since she left Winterfell. Alayne Stone had used the baths at the Gates of the Moon from time to time, but there was always a maidservant on hand to draw water, wash her hair, and help her style it when she was dry. Sansa supposed Tyroshi nobles were little different from southron ladies.

 _Apart from bathing in public, that is_. 

Sansa nodded at the golden-eyed girl, who had her hair pinned up in a crown-like crest of braids. It seemed odd that he would even _offer_ a man, but Sansa could not guess at how the people of the Free Cities staffed their households. She felt a stab of discomfort when she remembered Tyroshi servants would most like be slaves, and another stab when she saw the butterfly tattoo that marked the attendant's jaw. 

_Who owns her, I wonder? The bathhouse, or its owner - who might even be the Archon himself... I hope she is treated kindly here._

The slave-girl led Sansa through the doors to a changing area built of the same pastel-coloured brickwork as the exterior. Here, however, the floor was of a smooth black stone without seam or join; it reflected the torchlight like still water. The slave-girl removed her tunic and folded it into a wicker cubbyhole on the wall. The girl was naked beneath the tunic and Sansa tried not to let her discomfort show. She thought about trying to suggest that the girl await her here after her bath, but she couldn't find the vocabulary she needed. Sansa peeled off her own stinking woollen dress and the roughspun shirt underneath it. The girl took Sansa's clothing from her and met her eyes, rubbing her closed fingers on an open palm as though scrubbing. Sansa nodded vigorously, hoping the offer was to wash the clothes. The girl folded Sansa's clothes into a basket by the door, then sat her down before a looking-glass that seemed to be made of polished onyx and set to work untangling her hair. 

 

As the knots and mats were torn from her hair, Sansa finally began to let her mind wander. She took stock of the day so far. They had docked in Tyrosh, hoping to find a disguise for Sandor before they reached Pentos. They'd gone to a merchant who made masks for mummers, who has fashioned an astonishing custom-made mask that fit right over Sandor's scars. She couldn't tell if Sandor was happy with the result, though he had every reason to be: unless it fell apart faster than expected, he would not be easily recognised as the Hound.

 _It's no surprise that hiding his scars has thrown him. Most people never see anything else when they look at him. In Pentos, he can be anyone he chooses to be, not scarred or distinctive, not a warrior or a holy man or a wanted man._ _He must feel as lost as I did when I became Alayne Stone._

Would Alayne Stone have felt more comfortable in a place like this? The newly-resurgent Sansa Stark was not sure she was entirely happy with this latest turn of events. To strip naked with a man like this was entirely foreign to her. Joffrey, Petyr and of course Harry had taken unwelcome liberties, exposed more than Sansa was willing to show; she always expected that one day she would be bared before her husband on a marriage bed.  _This_... this was something decadent and dangerous. Considering what had passed between them on the Quiet Isle, Sandor might not think of this as a new step, a new boundary crossed.

 _Is it a boundary I even wish_ _to cross?_

On one level, it incensed her that Sandor had dragged her here without even asking if she felt ready for this - and with his foul mood today she could see traces of the callous Hound she once knew, who'd often pushed her just to find out whether she'd react. And yet it had been the _other_ Sandor who had proposed this: the one who was thoughtful and looked to her comfort, who was always gentle with her and never pressed for any intimacy to which she was not wholly committed. For all her apprehension, she wanted to trust in his intentions, even now. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. 

Another, quieter voice - one that reminded her of Randa Royce - pointed out that she wanted something else, too, which had nothing to do with trust or pride and everything to do with the whisper of his breath against her ear, the strength of his arm encircling her waist, and the  _heat_ in his eyes when they parted at the door.

 

* * *

 

The slave-girl was able to prepare Sansa's body for the baths, but nothing could have readied her for the sight of them. Gone were the delicate brick of the facade: the main bath area was carved of the same fused black stone as the changing-room, adorned richly with bronze that shone like gold in the light of the braziers. Sandor had not exaggerated about the size of the baths - Sansa had never been in a bigger room. Mist rose from the water in front of her, so thickly that she could not discern the far wall at all. Somewhere off ahead, unseen, was the sound of crashing water.

The floor was of the same perfectly smooth black stone as before, warm underfoot. It reminded Sansa of Winterfell, where the walls and floors had felt almost alive. The floor here sloped gently down towards the first pool. Its water had a curiously cloudy quality to it, and the steps leading into it had their edges picked out in bronze. Next to her, a thick partition of black wood topped with a bronze railing divided pool down the centre and ran all the way up to the wall. Sansa guessed the men's changing area opened onto the baths on the other side of this partition. Following its line down to the end, she saw that the halves of the room joined at the main pool, where both men and women wandered about. Beyond, she could just make out the edge of another panel where the room was split again. Down the sides of the main pool were black doors, which Sansa would not have noticed had not a man led a woman through it as she watched.

 

With the shock of the room passing, she began to take heed of its inhabitants. Closest to her, there were women young and old in the first pool. She couldn't help but notice that it was mostly men walking around near the main pool beyond, and she felt the blush begin at the sight of so many manhoods flopping around freely. A pair of middle-aged Tyroshi women emerged behind Sansa and waded through the first pool in front of her, splashing every part of their bodies with the milky water as they went. Hesitantly, Sansa followed, the slave-girl at her side. 

Despite the barrier, she had no trouble spotting Sandor scowling around him on the mens' side, her heart leaping as usual at the recognition. Sandor was standing in deepest part of the first pool, but his shoulders and chest still rose out of it where even a tall man would have been armpit-deep. He was well-made, as she'd suspected, heavy muscles standing out from his big frame. The mask did not hide the burn scars down the left side of his neck, though without the facial scars they did not seem so terrible at all. Thick dark chest hair was interrupted with lines and spots here and there, where Sansa guessed he had taken small wounds in the past. If there was anything that surprised Sansa, it was the paleness of his arms and shoulders, especially where they contrasted with his tanned hands: the result of a lifetime spent in armour.

Sansa liked how the tale of his life was stamped so clearly on his body.

_I_ _s that why I mislike the mask so much? His burns are not some little blemish to be covered up like a squire's pimples; in so many ways, they've made him who he is._

Her stomach flipped over a moment later when he caught sight of her and smiled. 

_His face is really rather pleasing whenever he lights up like that._

 

As if to punctuate the thought, Sandor chose that moment to frown at her over the barrier. "Sansa."

"I'm Mya today, remember?"

" _Sansa._ Have you hired a whore?"

She looked behind her in horror, following Sandor's gaze to the dusky-skinned girl. _Oh._ The penny dropped. Why, after all, would they ask her to _choose_ her attendant? 

"I... I thought she was a servant."

Sandor's laugh had a slightly wild note to it. "Well, she is, in a manner of speaking. Look... we're only meant to wade through this pool to get the worst of the filth off. We can go to the main pool to chat, or you can take your  _servant_  to the women's baths at the far end."

He stalked off through the water, leaving Sansa to awkwardly dismiss the poor slave-girl in broken Valyrian. The girl took one look at Sandor's retreating form and nodded, relief obvious on her face. She waded on quickly to ascend the steps at the far end, not so embarrassed that she couldn't marvel at how the bronze of the steps shone through the cloudy water.

 _Sandor will never, ever stop teasing me about this,_ she accepted.

It struck her then how quickly she was becoming accustomed to having Sandor around. Now, when she thought of the future, he always seemed to appear in it indefinitely. _Presumptuous, maybe, but... it's not as though either of us know anyone in Pentos._

Water dripped down Sansa's legs onto the walkway between the two pools. Curiously, she somehow felt _more_ naked now than before she went into the first pool. Sandor emerged from behind the partition with a broad grin plastered on his face. Sansa's eyes were not the only ones drawn. He was close to seven feet tall, and that was rare anywhere in the world. More than that, the Hound was almost grotesquely muscular - even to a Westerosi eye, let alone a Tyroshi. Even after six moons of convalescence and reflection, he had a fighter's body: a flat stomach that almost concave and sculpted legs and buttocks. 

Sansa swallowed, not trusting herself to look anywhere else. 

 

* * *

 

 

Sandor swiped a hasty glance over the girl as he offered his hand to her, and together they stepped into the largest pool. It was hotter than he'd expected, but the warmth was welcome on his skin. The water in this pool was crystal clear save for bubbles at the inlets, and the dragonstone floor was covered in traceries of metal that had as much to do with grip as with decoration. The whole room had an uncanny sort of ambiance to it: natural and artificial, familiar and foreign all at once. It reminded Sandor a little of Dragonstone. The rooms there were built on a comparably daunting scale, and he guessed that had been the architect's aim. Even the decoration here was designed to impress rather than delight. 

_Quite the money-spinner. For a copper coin, any man can bathe like a dragonlord._

Any man did, it seemed. There were scores of other bathers of all shapes and sizes. Valyrian-looking Lysene, dark Myrish, Pentoshi with styled beards, black-skinned Summer Island women, a clutch of fat men with wiry red-black hair, an Ibbenese - but once one got past the silly dyes, most would not have looked out of place in a market at King's Landing or Lannisport.

The scalloped edges of the pool had benches sculpted into the smooth rock, and that was where Sandor led her.  He sank gratefully into the water, allowing the heat to melt the tension from his muscles. After a few minutes of quiet, he pointed out the archways to ladies' bath and mens' bath, which were meant to bubble like pots on the boil. Between them, a cold torrent cascaded from the ceiling to cool any overheated bather. There would be other rooms too, some like ovens, others filled with wet steam, but Sandor had not been able to spot them while he waited for the little bird. 

 

Next to him, he felt Sansa stiffen in the water, and followed her eyes to see her tattooed slave-girl entering the baths again. A silver-haired man led her along the edge of the main pool to row of black doors.

"Are they..."

Sandor grunted. "Private rooms. They can't have people fucking in the middle of the baths, not even in the Free Cities."

Sansa said nothing. It was more than a little odd, her discomfort whenever fucking came up. She was young, true enough, but she'd been married to Tyrion Lannister and held as some sort of concubine by Petyr Baelish, whoremonger to kings - and _still_ she acted like a blushing maiden on encountering a whore. Maybe she'd always have this innocence about her; on some level Sandor liked the contrast that made with high ladies like Cersei or the Tyrell girl. On another level, though, he found it a bit wearisome to always be tiptoeing around the facts of life. 

 

"It's so different from home," said Sansa quietly, surveying the water. He looked over at her, keeping his gaze north of her collarbone. She blushed nonetheless, but seemed to be growing more comfortable with the new situation. "All these people bathing together, comfortable to be so  _exposed_."

"There were naked children outside. It's not the same in the Free Cities."

"It's not," Sansa reflected. "There are so many people here. Friends, families, lovers... It's like an inn, except no-one's wearing anything. Well, except for..."

Her gaze drifted uneasily to the narrow doors.

"Inns sell whores, too, little bird," Sandor reminded her gently. 

"And more openly," Sansa agreed. "It's just... odd how a place can be so different and yet so similar."

"Gerion Lannister used to say that the ports kept changing, but the men didn't."

 

Under the water, Sansa's fingers found his, sending lightning shooting through Sandor's arm.  "Are there baths like this in Pentos?"

"I don't know," he said truthfully. He tried his best to ignore the pounding in his chest. "Warming up to them?"

"I could," Sansa smiled.

His modicum of chivalrous restraint faltered as she rolled her shoulders back until they clicked, and Sandor couldn't help staring as the tops of her breasts rose momentarily out of the water.

Even trying to keep his eyes off her, it was not lost on Sandor that Sansa Stark was the finest woman he'd seen in his life.  She'd splashed out of the cleansing-pool like the Maiden herself come to life, still somehow graceful despite her obvious embarrassment, and he'd felt heads turning towards them.  For the first time, he felt grateful that he was not immediately recognisable as the Hound. That sort of prompt, calling to mind the court of the Iron Throne, might remind any onlookers of a hunt for a pretty maid with auburn hair. 

_Think, Clegane. What do they see? A big ugly brute and a tall woman, young and fair. She doesn't have her house words seared into her skin, for fuck's sake, nor the price of her bounty. You don't have the Hound's scars. You could be anybody, both of you._

"Are you going to try any of those other things?" Sansa chirped. "The waterfall and so on?"

"I don't think so, little bird. I'm a bit afraid of tearing this thing off, or sweating too much under it. Or... I don't know, melting the damn thing. Fuck." 

Sansa was biting her lip the way she always did when debating whether to say something. "Maybe that's for the best," she said finally.

_What would she say to me now, if the boot were on the other foot?_

"You should try them, though," he said brightly. "You can tell me all about them."

Sansa smiled back, warming him in a gentle way that was beginning to feel familiar.

"I'd like to try the waterfall, I think."

 

He helped her to her feet and off she splashed. There was a danger to this.

Having her so close, with only warm water between them, when for all his attempted gallantry he'd give anything to get closer. If there was no-one else here... he'd pull her tightly against him, and maybe she wouldn't even mind that - not if all her intrigued peeking was any indication. Her wet skin would slide over his as he claimed her mouth, and unless his self-control was better than he credited, she'd feel him rock-hard under the water almost instantly. Fuck, it would only take two tilts of their hips for her to take him in. In his dreams it was _always_ easy with her, previous experiences be damned; he'd never fucked a woman in the water before, though, and he wondered just how different it might feel. And then Sansa Stark would tilt her beautiful head up towards him, the ends of her hair trailing into the water, and she'd gasp his name while she looked at his face-

_Except it's not your bloody face, is it? The man she was blushing at just now is someone you've never been, and you never will be either. It's all fake. All a lie. A lie that was meant to be for everyone in this ugly vicious world except her._

It made him irrationally angry. 

 

Sandor had scarcely mastered himself again before she was back, pert and lush and better than he could've dreamed of, gushing breathily about the waterfall-

 _"I stood straight under the jet and it felt incredible, just pounding into me until I could barely see!_ _"_

-and the sauna-

_"It felt too much like being roasted, if I'm honest. I had to keep pouring cold water all over myself..."_

-with absolutely no idea what it was doing to him.

"You can go enjoy the ladies' pool, too, if you want," he said hoarsely, when it all became too much. "I'll wait for you here. Take as long as you need."

"Thank you," said Sansa contentedly as she took his hand in both of hers, "But I'd rather stay here with you, if it pleases you."

 

Sandor tried not to let the happiness show  _too_ plainly, but some parts of him were rather less co-operative than his face.

 

* * *

 

They dined simply but well on fish grilled in salt and herbs, boiled vegetables, served with a cold red wine. Clean clothes and fresh food felt impossibly luxurious after just a few days without them. Sansa's wet braid was soaking into the back of her dress, and she suspected the bath - and especially the waterfall - had driven the very last of the dye out of it. She wondered idly if Sandor would prefer it red, as she did, or some other colour.

_What sort of woman does he usually like? No doubt he would say something self-deprecating if I asked._

The sun was lower in the sky now, but there was no sharpness to the air as yet. Sandor led Sansa through the crowds of the afternoon market, hands clasped tightly, but even now as they walked along the near-empty sea-front, they hadn't let go. Sansa felt like she was sparkling with energy, in a strange way that had nothing to do with the sweet wine. There was a spring in Sandor's lurching step, too, and her heart swelled to see it.

"So, did my lord have a tolerable day in Tyrosh?" asked Sansa with mock-servility.

"If you mean me, then yes, I did," said Sandor. "A very fair lady found me a disguise so that I could be seen with her and not be mistaken for an ogre or grumpkin. I bathed with said lady in the Great Baths of Tyrosh - a sight I've wanted to see for a very long time, might I add, and the baths were very fine also - and then the same lady accompanied me to dinner. So all in all, yes, it's been a good day."

Sansa squeezed his hand, delighted by his answer.

"What about you, little bird?" he rasped, voice huskier than usual. "Did you see anything you liked today?"

"I did, and there was even more to see than I expected," said Sansa, turning red. She could _feel_ Sandor's smirk without seeing it.  "Although..."

"What?"

Sansa regretted it instantly: could hear the hollowness in his voice, the flatness as he retreated behind his wall of apathy. Somehow, it was worse than his anger. _Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why would you blurt this out_ now _, when everything felt so wonderful?_ But the words were loose now; there could be no escape from the consequences.

"Although, when we're alone together..." she winced, fearing his reaction, "could you leave the mask off? For me? I'd rather see you as - well - as you are."

His grip on her hand tightened, but her heart sank as Sandor's silence stretched on. 

"I'm sorry, I know I-"

 

Sandor stopped dead without warning, his hand tugging Sansa back mid-stride so that she wheeled round into his chest. An enormous hand cupped her left cheek, and a gentle kiss followed swiftly. Within a few frantic heartbeats there was nothing gentle about it: the Hound's arm kept her pressed firmly against him, and he kissed her with a desperate hunger. All the frost of their chaste se'en-night thawed at once. 

_Gods, there's such longing in him, just beneath the surface. How does he bear it?_

Nearly as surprising was the force of her own eagerness. She bit his lower lip instinctively, then moved her tongue against his, prepared to follow wherever he led. A feeling she was beginning to recognise as desire began to bloom in her stomach and she clutched at him, wanting to match his ardour with her own. When she finally broke free for air, Sansa was completely unprepared for the way he was _looking_ at her, eyes full of softness in a way she had never seen before - nor even imagined possible. He continued to hold her against the warmth of his body, caressing the line of her jaw with a single finger and just gazing into her faec. There was almost reverence in that look, as though she were the dearest thing in the world to him. It was so sudden, so unexpected...

_How long has he cared for me this way?_

It was flattering and astonishing and a little bit frightening, albeit in an exciting sort of way. Still, as the moment stretched on Sansa felt obliged to do more than just stand there accepting his admiration, and so she pressed her lips against his once again, softly this time, until eventually his arm fell towards her waist and they drew away, breathless.

Things were beginning to make more sense now; her doubts were melting away. She'd known he cared for her, but not that his feelings were so intense. There was no guilt on Sansa's part for that.  _We are only at the start of this road; even what I feel now is new to me - and what I feel is strong._ The tingle in her belly, the fire in her cheeks, the storm in her chest - no other man had woken this in her. And there wasn't a man alive she trusted so well. They had begun something that felt safe and certain - and that in itself was a feeling to cling to.

Never breaking eye-contact, Sansa teased, "Is that Hound-speak for, _'Yes Sansa, that would please me also'_?"

Sandor laughed uncomfortably, but there was a nod in there too. He cleared his throat and took his hands from her, leaving Sansa feeling slightly bereft. "Seven hells, woman. Keep asking questions like that and before long I'll agree to anything."


	5. A Fifth Sunset

The _Maiden's Fancy_ skimmed across the Bleeding Sound in the light of a red sunset. The highlands cast the city into shadow, but Sansa watched its jumbled sprawl shrink into the distance like an already-missed companion.  

She wanted to remember Tyrosh as she last saw it, the verdant hills bright with the dying sunlight. The great baths stood out on a high hill, its confection of masonry framed by the empty plaza around it. The dark horns of the Archon's citadel loomed high above the harbour, and at the end of the causeway the Bleeding Tower's flickering beacon waved them from the bay. The water seemed eerily calm, the wind almost _too_ gentle, and the reassuring weight of Sandor's arm around her slowed Sansa's breathing to nearly nothing. In that perfect moment, Sansa felt like she was _flying_ from one Free City towards another: a little bird for true.

And then they were out into the Narrow Sea, where the wind was harsher without the shelter of the islands. Sandor muttered something about wanting to settle his stomach and he stalked off below decks, but Sansa wasn't ready to retire so soon. She wrapped her cloak around her a little tighter, assured Sandor that she would be warm enough, and continued to stare at the horizon.

 

_"Tyrosh is a heap of rubble compared with Pentos, and in the summer Braavos is fairer still,"_ the captain told her, seemingly amused by her rapt seaward gaze.  Sansa was proud to find she was getting better at understanding his rapid Valyrian. 

_"Do you think King's Landing looks beautiful?"_

He grunted.  _"Better than Tyrosh. Better than the other Sunset cities. But the smell!"_

Sansa chuckled politely. In her very limited experience, so far the reek of the docks seemed quite similar everywhere. Below decks was a more pressing problem: she didn't know how she would manage a day and a night oscillating between the biting wind and the stink of bodies. Sansa had come to loathe conditions below decks in the short time since they left Maidenpool, and took the fresh air at every opportunity. They'd taken on silks in Tyrosh and a dozen new passengers, including a gaggle of bedslaves whose eyes Sansa could not meet. There was also a malodorous cargo in the hold next to Stranger: the unmarked boxes stacked there oozed a viscous purple liquid that smelt eyewateringly of urine.

 

Before they raised anchor, Sandor had contrived to heft three flat strongboxes into Stranger's hold and spread their blankets across them like a low bed. "It's shit," he'd said sheepishly, "but it's the best I can do." Sansa had kissed his cheek and professed herself delighted. It actually _was_ shit, in practice: the heavy ridges of the lid dug into Sansa's skin despite the cushioning of the wool and there were alarming scrabbling sounds coming from inside one of the boxes, as though some vermin had been packed in by accident, but it was still much better than trying to sleep propped up in the scratchy damp straw.

_I can't lie to him, not even to make him feel better. Nothing would hurt him more._

After the moment they'd shared on the seafront, Sansa was taking far more care in how she spoke to him. That the huge, scarred, fearsome Hound was so devoted to _her_... it gave her a pleasant shiver to think of it. But it came with a responsibility, too. It made her feel curiously protective of him: determined not to hurt his feelings, even accidentally, and determined to let him know that she did not take his affection for granted.

 

* * *

 

The closer they inched to Pentos, the more worried Sandor grew.When they stepped off the  _Maiden's Fancy_ , the real challenges would begin. Ordinary, existential challenges like finding somewhere to room and seeking safe paid work, away from high politics. Most of his concerns fell apart on proper examination, but their shadows lingered in his mind.

Finding work was the keystone that would make or break their flight to Pentos, and on that particular, Sandor felt he had reasonable grounds for confidence. The thriving port of Pentos should have plenty of opportunities for a man selling his sword or his strength. He'd managed to earn his keep as a labourer even as a fugitive in war-torn Westeros. Without a price on his head, it should be even easier.It stood to reason that a labourer should make enough money to put a meagre roof over his head.  However, he could be less sure that it would pay for Stranger. That was his soundest individual concern for now: the faithful courser would be expensive to stable, and if the choice was between keeping the horse fed and watered or the same security for his owners, then Stranger would have to go. 

As a sellsword, Sandor could make considerably more, but it came with a certain amount of risk. Quite apart from the potential dangers of the job, mercenary work would put him into contact with a different class of employer: traders or nobles or crooks, all of whom were more likely than the average man to have been to King's Landing, and thus more likely to have heard tell of a tall scarred brute in the king's service. He'd need to speak to the little bird about whether the step up in station was worth it.

 

The little bird had protested a few times that she would not expect Sandor to provide for both of them. She'd proclaimed that while there was breath in her body she would make herself useful, and so on. He had grunted that there was no need, but the honest fact he shied away from was that Sansa's skills were neither so rare nor so useful as his. It pleased him that she was throwing herself into the charade of their new life - their new life _together_ , no less - but he wouldn't see her working herself ragged to assuage ill-founded guilt. It wasn't her fault that she was trained to sing, dance, and draw. It wasn't for want of dedication that nursemaids and seamstresses earned silver where a man-at-arms earned gold.

And money be damned, when it came to it he wanted her happy. He wanted her to have every comfort that had been denied her after Ned Stark's death: good food, clean clothes, warm lodgings and a soft bed.

_I won't make her share it with me, not unless she wants to._

The notion seemed less and less outlandish every day, though considering Sansa's last experience with a man who desired her, Sandor trying hard to keep her at arm's length. Still, the ground had shifted between them in Tyrosh. After stripping his insecurities bare in the maskmaker's, and stripping each other bare at the baths, the ice between them had been broken. In the day since, he'd felt them settling into an easy rhythm together: comfortable in their silences and open in their conversations.

Sansa had finally broken down about Jon. Shortly after they put to sea, she'd asked the captain's lad what he knew about Westeros. The boy had seen Eastwatch when he was small, and he had many questions about the Wall and what lay beyond it. Sansa cheerfully answered all of his questions and told him stories about the Night's King and the Rat Cook and Good Queen Alysanne. When the boy was summoned by the navigator, Sansa turned to Sandor with a tearful smile, and then dissolved into sobs against his chest.

_She parted from all of her brothers the day we left Winterfell. She was going south to marry the crown prince, he was being turfed out to the Night's Watch._ Sandor surmised that they must have been close enough in age; after all that had happened to House Stark since Sansa last saw Jon Snow, he suspected there was much that she had to say to the young Bastard of Winterfell. Strangely, Sansa seemed far more reconciled to the loss of her little cousin Robert - the one she'd been caring as long as Sandor had been on the Isle. He supposed he'd expected some sort of maternal reaction, knowing Sansa's soft heart. It seemed Lysa Arryn's sickly, mewling brat had not become any more agreeable since leaving King's Landing, and with a resigned sigh Sansa sorrowed that she'd done all she could for Sweetrobin.

_The little sister is the only family she has left, and fuck knows where that one's_ _got to._

 He felt a flash of wild hope that they might stumble across Arya Stark in Pentos. 

_Why not? And Tyrek Lannister and Lady Dayne and the Children of the Forest, too._

No. Unless the gods japed with them, Sandor was all Sansa had for the foreseeable future. It was a thought that daunted and motivated him in equal measure. There was a talk to be had about where all this was going - where things began and ended between them - but it could wait for full bellies and dry quarters in Pentos.

Nervous energy had Sandor brushing Stranger for the fourth time since Tyrosh when the little bird came back.

"We should see Pentos at sunrise," said Sansa quietly. "I can take over, if you wish to go eat before bed."

 

When he returned, he was surprised to find the little bird slipping back into Stranger's stable-pen ahead of him, red-faced and guilty-looking. His scowl earned him no explanation, and when he drifted off he still had no idea where she'd been. It was not until Sandor awoke before dawn that he realised two things: first, she'd never crawled into his arms face-to-face before, and second, until last night she'd always gone to sleep before him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short update since I'm struggling with the other half of this chapter! Hope y'all don't mind.


	6. A Sixth Daughter

The dawn brought them within sight of Pentos, the sixth daughter of Old Valyria.  Sansa tried to drink in every detail of her new home, but her mind was still reeling somewhat from her conversation last night. She had not spent long with Kaela, but the woman had demonstrated to her just how _foreign_ the Free Cities truly were.

Kaela was bound for the temple of the Lord of Light to train as a priestess. Her red god sounded strange to Sansa: not only because it was one god with just one face, but even the ways in which he wished to be worshipped. R'hllor did not urge restraint and diligence, like the gods of the Faith. The red priests bade their followers  _embrace_ the fire in all its forms, harnessing their passions without necessarily reining them in. The servants of the Red Temples included warriors and concubines as well as preachers and almoners.

Sansa's mind had gone back to the bathhouse then, to the sight of a man stretching out his stiff neck while her eyes drifted down; to the jolt of fingers touching and a kiss that left her breathless. There in the priestess's alcove, Sansa had simply blushed.

 

 

 

**"It all sounds rather... violent," whispered Sansa, hesitantly.**

**"Violent, my dear?" purred Kaela, her Common Tongue inflected with the sounds of Lysene. "That is not the word I would choose. 'Accurate', mayhaps."**

**_No,_ thought Sansa. _'Honest.'_ The word resounded in her head in a voice that was not her own, and she remembered the dry reek of woodsmoke in the air.**

**"For instance, the Lord of Light does not treat a woman's blood as something shameful, as your Seven do."**

**Sansa had no answer to that. The priestess-to-be had come upon Sansa as she washed her rags in a shallow bucket of saltwater. For the first time, Sansa truly missed the comforts of life of land: clean, sweet water on hand, and a place to peg her smallclothes out to dry.**

 

 

In the gap between its harbour walls, Sansa could see the spires and domes the captain had fêted, and stately buildings of of honeycoloured stone lining the seafront. The central part of the city was built on a lofty peninsula, its high bastions forbidding and bleak all along the port. Like Tyrosh, the city sprawled over hills all around the bay, but unlike Tyrosh there were huge walls visible where the hills met the horizon. Pentos was not like King's Landing: Pentos connected to its world through the sea. In Essos, a hinterland was a liability. 

This life would be new to her in ways she could not yet begin to fathom, and that in itself sent a shiver of dread through Sansa. She was desperately grateful to have Sandor at her side. He seemed to share her approach to challenges, preferring to focus on practicalities rather than dwell on uncertainties. He represented a fairly large uncertainty in his own right, of course. He'd kissed her gently this morning, after she applied the mask to his face, and she returned his affection not with a kiss but with a warm embrace. 

 _I was always afraid of the Hound's hatred and bitterness. It never occurred to me that he could..._ love... _just as intensely._

 

 

**"What does the Lord of Light say of... love?" Sansa challenged. She always felt curiously bold when her moonblood was on her - bold and purposeful, once the cramps had passed. "Surely he has more to say of men and women than their lusts."**

**Kaela's laugh had a hissing quality to it. "Fire burns, but most often fire warms. The Lord of Light is in the warmth of the hearth just as much as the heat of the bedchamber."  She hissed again at the sight of Sansa's blush.  "The man you travel with... your husband, no? How did you choose each other? The last girl I met from the Sunset Lands told me your men carry you off, bodily, and so is the match made."**

**"We don't..."  Sansa frowned. She was struggling to remember how the Faith reconciled the love described in _The Seven-Pointed Star_ with the contractual marriages of modern life, which treated love and affection as an uncomfortable afterthought.  _When did we stop asking the gods to grant good fortune to a pair of lovers, and start asking them to grant love to a couple paired with ink and coin?_**

**"In my faith, we believe that if the Lord stokes a fire between two souls, they should allow it to consume them. He may see fit to send children, and if so their duty is to care for them - and for each other, as a family. It may be that the fire between two people burns itself out, and if so then that too is natural. But still, the family must be cared for. The temple whores are there for any man or woman who no longer feels drawn by their partner. But if there are children... then both parents have a duty to raise them as true servants of the Lord of Light."**

****

 

She felt Sandor's eyes upon her long before he crossed the deck to join her. "What happens now?" Sansa asked.

"We get Stranger off this bloody pile of timber and we find an inn."

"With a bath?"

"With  _two_ fucking baths. Or one very big bath." 

Sandor flashed her a fiendish grin, which Sansa returned with a flush. Her mind returned to the bathhouse in Tyrosh, not for the second or even third time; to Randa's flippant assertion that 'bigger' meant better, and Mya's quiet elaboration that it wasn't necessarily as simple as that.

 

 

**With Kaela's dark purple eyes upon her, Sansa wondered if the Free Cities had a word for what she shared with Sandor. _If we followed the Red God, I would already have given in to these impulses._ Then she caught herself.**

**_Wait... would I? It's not as simple as just doing what feels good. If I was born in the Free Cities, I'd be asking myself whether I was willing to be bound to this man forever, if we happened to make a child. I'd not think about the virtue of chastity or the sanctity of maidenhood. I'd be deciding whether I found him suitable as a father to my children._ **

**Mayhap that was a better test than the cold assessment of a partner's birth or station.**

_**Look at the partners** _ **that _approach brought me. A full accounting would put Petyr far ahead of Sandor, and never consider of the quality of the bridegroom himself._**

**Sansa wondered what the peasants of the North did, guided by the Old Gods. Instinct told her it was closer to the distant peasants following the Red God than to the nobles who shared their streets.**

 

* * *

 

The moment they stepped off the _Maiden's Fancy_ , Sandor's search began. He needed lodging and work, and a fair autumn morning was as fine a time as any to get them. Years of experience told him the portside inns would be little more than brothels and winesinks, and seedy ones at that. If they wanted safety, then just like in Tyrosh, they'd need to head uphill to where the merchant class lived.

 

Pentos was not organised like King's Landing, with a king at the top and the smallfolk at the bottom, and a hundred different levels of nobility, prestige and wealth in between. The Prince of Pentos was served by three Heralds, who chaired the great councils of state: War, Justice, and Trade. There was no Small Council and no array of Lords Paramount. The rule of distant lands was of no interest to the great and good of Pentos. What did concern them, however, was _coin_. Most of the magisters ensconced in their manses belonged to one of the Forty Families.

Two square brick towers rose from the end of the Silk Docks, where they'd disembarked, and Sandor suspected they might house the guildhalls of some of the spice lords. The smart ones stayed away from ceremonial politics, from what Sandor remembered of Essosi gossip, but they still needed to swap favours with the Council of Trade if they wanted to get anything done: access to the ports, advance notice on shifting tariffs, and so on. The opulent facade of Pentos hid an underbelly just as mercenary as King's Landing.

And here, his reputation would not precede him if it came to a fight. It seemed like every man in Pentos walked around armed - not only with stupid bravo's blades, either. Sandor saw more than a few hatchets and dirks sheathed on the belts of passers-by, well-off or down-at-heel. _Close-quarters weapons,_  he noted. _What use is a sword if I'm attacked in a fucking alley?_  He wondered if it would be worth arming the little bird with something other than her eating knife, especially if she wanted her independence.

She turned heads, of course, though not as many as Sandor might have feared.  _Not every man sniffs after her like you do,_ he reminded himself harshly. Instead of the stab of self-disgust he was expecting, he found himself remembering the way the girl had felt in his arms this morning, her eyes roaming over his face; he remembered the sounds she'd made when he'd licked her on the Quiet Isle and felt a fierce, possessive surge of pride.

 

On a store-lined avenue where pigeons and seagulls hopped fussily amongst the fallen leaves, Sansa translated the inn's name as 'the Great Rooster' with a perfectly straight face. The scent of frying onions filled the air. If not for the eunuch soldiers flanking the counting-house or the sound of spoken Pentoshi, Sandor could have believed himself anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms, bar the North or Dorne.

The little bird's Valyrian was sound enough to secure bed, board, and stabling for less money than Sandor expected. It shocked him to find how politely he was received, unscarred. The innkeeper's eyes travelled up and down his massive frame curiously, but it seemed the man had no qualms beyond the colour of their coin. The serving wenches avoided his eye with shyness, not fear, and when people in the common room stepped out of his way it was a respectful withdrawal instead of the alarmed scurry he was so used to. 

_Is it a prettier face they're responding to, or the bloody lackwit smile plastered across it every time the little bird looks at me?_

She looked at him often, too. 

"You should bathe first," she'd said quickly, when they reached the room.

"So eager to get me unclothed," he smirked. "What would your septa say?"

Sansa sniffed. "I don't think the Seven hold much sway here."

He laughed at that, propping the door open for the serving-girl. "Something tells me I'm going to like Pentos."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, this is a bit of a mess but the pieces have to be manoeuvred into place. Bit of a timeskip coming up, and I have a 'part 3' in mind.


	7. A Seventh Pup

The pup was small enough to fit in the inside pocket of Robert's coat. Discomfited by his lurching gait, she had started licking the front of his shirt nervously, and Robert made a face as her meaty breath drifted up inside his collar. The pup gazed up at him with earnest brown eyes that melted his annoyance, and he gave the front of his coat a quick pat. Mariah would be excited to meet the latest addition to their family. Hells, she'd probably have the dog obeying a dozen commands and pissing in a chamberpot within a day or two.

It was a chilly evening, sharp enough that frost was like to coat the cobblestones come morning. Robert fingered his coin-purse, but judged it too light to pay for firewood on the way home. Privately he hoped that they had enough to see them through till morning. A long day of heavy lifting had set the usual ache in his muscles, and the only task he wished to deal with this night was the far more rewarding task of making his little wife smile. His conversation with the fat coin-counter could wait until the morrow, and so could all the worries it dredged up.

 

A smile proved the very first sight Robert met on unlatching the door, as Mariah flung herself greedily towards him.

"Did you get her? Can I see?"

Firelight flickered in the main living area. It was more cramped than Robert would have liked, especially for a man of his size, but it suited his pocket far better than it did his stature. Mariah had made their two rooms feel cosy and homelike - like a proper home, that is, not the cold fearful ones Robert had known in another life. They rented the space above a draper's shop, in the shabby part of the Lace Quarter that was too often downwind of the chandleries . He lurched off towards an even cheaper part of Pentos at dawn to labour for a masonry merchant. Despite his broken Valyrian, his strength and efficiency quickly made him indispensable. A brief and violent encounter with a would-be thief demonstrated further ways in which Robert could help the business, and he found a few extra silvers in his purse that week on the understanding that he would stay similarly sharp in future. The silver went straight to Mariah, who was anxious to make herself useful in their fledgling household.

The scent rising from the stewpot on the table, the delight that danced in his wife's blue eyes as she cradled her puppy, the the softness of her hand in his... his chest swelled to realise that this was his normality now. Together they were building a life that was safe and warm and quiet and  _happy_. It was a world away from what they'd both expected of their lives.

 

"What are you going to call her?" Robert rasped.

"I had a few names in mind, but none of them seem to suit now that I've seen her," burbled Mariah. "Look at those  _lashes_!"

He chuckled, noticing for the first time: the little black pup did indeed have absurdly long eyelashes, plus lengthy brows that passed for even longer lashes at first glance. "What's the matter, little bird? Worried you won't be the prettiest bitch in the house any more?"

She smacked him lightly with the back of a hand. The dog yawned. The merchant's yappy guard-dog had whelped around the time Robert started the job. It was his personal opinion that the dog was totally ill-suited to her task: a calmer, more robust animal would have served far better as a deterrent than one of these floppy-eared scenthounds. Still, some soft part of him had balked when the merchant gave up on finding a home for the runt and considered drowning her. Time would tell whether the little dog had the delicate constitution breeders feared in runts, but sickly or not he knew a companion would be good for Mariah.

 

"You're quiet," she observed over dinner.

Robert speared a chunk of meat on his eating-knife, considering his response. He decided to defy his earlier resolution: now that the girl had asked, anything other than the truth felt unacceptable. "I had a job offer today."

"Ilmerio doesn't mean to move you to the quarry after all?" frowned Mariah. "You gave him your reasons-"

"Not Ilmerio. Someone new. The quartermaster of the Second Sons called on me today."

Mariah gave him a long look. "They're sellswords, are they not?"

"Sellswords with Westerosi blood, and sometimes Westerosi names too."

Her eyes slid to the wall behind him, knife held limply in her fingers.  She was staring at nothing in particular - retreating into some inner fortress from whence no trace of reaction could escape onto her face.

She was afraid.

"He knew who you were."

"He did."

"Did he know about me?"

"Assumed you were some peasant girl I picked up along the way. I didn't see a reason to correct him." He took a swallow of the weak beer the draper's wife brewed. "Your face isn't so famous in soldiering circles."

Sansa Stark met his eyes again, a wan smile lifting the corners of her mouth briefly. "Their loss, don't you think?" 

"Their loss," he agreed, almost smiling back himself.

"What are you going to do?"

Sandor said nothing. In truth, he didn't where to start. Barrack life was temptingly familiar; the novelty of heavy labour had worn off and it wearied Sandor to imagine grinding his way to an achey old age. Moreover, it was too much to hope for anonymity for the rest of their lives. It was only a matter of time before someone came looking for Sansa Stark in the Free Cities; Pentos was not so far away as it felt. There was appeal in hiding in plain sight, where he could see threats coming. Who would expect Joffrey's Hound to be sheltering the heir of Winterfell anyway? None of the ruined highborns fleeing into exile were like to have ever crossed paths with the girl, let alone know her by sight.

He was ashamed to admit that an ember of pride glowed amid his more logical reasons. He hated how swordplay _called_ to him, even when almost a year had passed; the glory of excelling at something and the respect it commanded.  _Sandor Clegane, master-at-arms of the Second Sons. And his lovely 'wife', sharing spacious quarters on the Company's compound up on Hukko's Hill. Hot baths and a soft bed - a real bed where he could stop_ just _short of fucking her for another few moons_.

When his raised his eyes, he found her gaze still on his face.

"We haven't been very good at keeping our cover," said Sansa levelly. He frowned. "Della asked me some funny questions today. She wanted to know what 'Sandor' meant in the Common Tongue."

Della was the draper's wife, who lived on the other side of the thin wall and shared washing with the little bird. She was an incorrigible gossip but a patient teacher, and moreover was wed to their landlord. His patience was always on edge with the woman, and his hand fisted around his knife at the mention of her name. 

"I said it meant 'sweet one'," she smirked. "It was quite a good answer, I think. She asked if 'Sansa' was the female version. Those walls are even thinner than we guessed."

 _Knew I was paying too much for this damned place._  

"If that's the worst slip in two moons, we've done well enough," Sandor grunted. "He tried to hide the reasons but it sounds like the Second Sons have lost a lot of their fighting men in the East. A replacement force needs training up, though I can't imagine where they've found the gold for one if their strength was smashed. They must be better thieves than they are fighters."

"We'd have to live amongst such men," Sansa pointed out.

"Not so different from knights, I'd say." 

 

All of his thoughts spilled forth then. Sansa listened quietly, but would offer no opinion until she slept on it. Not for the first time, Sandor was impressed by her rationality; another woman would have rejected the idea out of hand, and maybe slapped him for letting the fat quartermaster walk away without a blade his back. At the last glance before he blew out the candle, she looked concerned, but... she hadn't said  _no._


	8. An Eighth Week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa makes some decisions.

Sansa lay awake on the pallet. At her feet, the wheezy sighs of the puppy were audible over Sandor's deeper, softer breaths, and she turned away from the draught that nipped at her bare shoulders. 

 _I did not mean to be Mariah forever,_ she thought.  _No more than I meant to be Alayne Stone any longer than I needed to._  

The Second Sons' proposition rolled around her head. It was plain to her how dearly Sandor wanted to accept it; the only question was whether it was feasible for them to do so.  _Would I be safer in their barracks as an officer's wife?_ If someone came looking for Sansa Stark, then a compound full of Sandor's brothers-in-arms seemed a better bet than the draper's rooms. But if no-one was actively seeking Sansa Stark, then she could keep her treacherous head much further down here than among a company of Westrons (as the Pentoshis knew them.)

She had no way of knowing which possibility was most likely. Both courses available to her involved gambling with her own safety.

_The Sons would be safer still if I took yet another name._

'Mariah' was all used up, as far as she was concerned. It was a shame, really. It was so difficult to land on a name that had no strong memories attached to it - let alone one that kept its bearer's rank and hometown ambiguous. 'Mariah' had been good in that way, and 'Robert' better still. All the names that felt comfortable to her belonged to Starks, or loved ones from the North too long ago.

 

For that reason, she could understand well why Sandor wanted to take back his name and station. The mask had never hidden his height, build, or accent. It was only ever meant to buy him time, and in that respect it had served its purpose many times over. They  _had_ made a life here in Pentos. A humble one, sparely furnished, to be sure - but they were fed and sheltered, and not bothered overmuch by the rats or the thieves.

 

Sansa's Pentoshi was good now. They both had trades, after a fashion. She'd learned to buy and actually _cook_ simple fare in the pot on the fire. Her hands had roughened and her body was stronger. There was a colour in her cheeks that Sansa had not seen in the glass since she was a girl. Her smiles came easier than she could remember.

And... she loved him. 

It had proven such a quiet thing, to fall; that was the part that surprised her most. There was no great drama about it, no sudden awakening of feeling or fine eloquent declaration like in the stories she'd once devoured. It simply struck her one day that she loved him, and when it did, the thought rang strong and pure through her whole body, like the peal of the clearest bell; it rang with the resonance of something true and obvious and natural, like the fact her eyes were blue and the rain was wet. She loved Sandor Clegane.  She loved the light in his eyes and the scrape of his laugh. She loved the rhythm of his walk and the deft way he dressed. She loved his resilience and his complaints, she loved his frustration and his patience, she loved his teasing and his wisdom when he cared to share it. The care he showed his horse, the gruff awkwardness in which he couched any thoughtful act towards Sansa. His bad moods... she'd  _like_  him better with a gentler temper - but as he was, she loved him none the less.

He had changed in Pentos, too. Sandor _could_ be gentle and kind, but above all he was direct. There was none of the sentimentality Sansa might have expected after her conversations with Myranda Royce. The man she had unwittingly chosen would never take a moment to praise her eyes or speak his devotion, with sweet words or crude ones. It was not in his nature and never would be. Sandor still seemed bewildered by any new form of affection, remained quick to anger and quick to see an insult where none was meant. He was no model of gallantry, even in a fair light, and Sansa was grateful to see the roughest edges smoothing a little with every week that slipped by. It warmed her to see how he could be himself and yet change.

They'd spent a fortnight at the inn, and then two moons here in the Lace Quarter. Without a neighbour as chatty as Della, Sansa might not have spoken to anyone here for a long time. Her whole life could so easily have been based around Sandor's comings and goings.  Sometimes, Sansa wondered if she could have loved any man at all under such circumstances. There were a few exceptions, of course; but mayhap she would have come to love any _remotely decent_ man who might have gone through this crucible with her.

She was not sure how quickly it had happened, either. At no point had she fancied herself half in love with him or fifth-eighths in love with him. All she could say for sure was that when she stepped off the _Maiden's Fancy_  she had not been in love with him, and now, two and a half moons later, she was. They'd pretended to love one another all that time; they'd lived together as man and wife, in all ways save one. Sandor seemed to think she'd been taken against her will in  _that_ way too, before she found him, and had kept his word about not putting her under any pressure. From time to time, in the heat of the moment, he would blurt out something about wanting to take her for true, or gush that what they were doing was  _almost_ as good as the real thing, and she could not deny how often she thought of being with him that way. She thought about those words a lot in the afternoons, when she waited for his return.

 

_Septa Mordane never taught me to know when I should bed my paramour. I took that from the words of a red priestess._

Sansa squirmed in the blankets again, wriggling closer to Sandor. The pup whined softly, twisted, and began to lick Sansa's feet. She let an arm slide over Sandor's shoulder as she knew he liked and she pressed a kiss on the line of his spine.

At some point, she would have to tell the poor man she was still a maid. She could imagine his reaction perfectly: the sullen, brooding look that would come into his eyes and knit his brows. His cheek would twitch as he silently unpicked moons and moons of misinterpreted words and actions. He would treat her like she was made of glass, and he wouldn't let slip a single word about how badly he wanted to fuck her. It would upset him. But it would have to be done.

It would have to be done if they were to marry for true. No doubt Sandor was expecting to simply carry on with their lie indefinitely. She wasn't at all sure how he would take this suggestion, given that the lie was sure to suffice for everyone, save her. After all, the Second Sons were not like to ask too many pointed questions of the Hound's supposedly lowborn wife. Not even if her name was still Sansa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prize for the first commenter to spot the cheeky video game reference in this little chapter!


	9. A Ninth Name

The sun had barely lit the sky when they rose to break their fast. Sansa nursed life back into the hearthfire and warmed milk in a pan while Sandor took the pup down to the street and painted the mask to his face. She and Sandor broke their fast on stale rolls; there was even one for the dog, soaked in a bowl of milk.  Neither of them mentioned the Second Sons.

 

"What do  _you_ think we should call her?" Sansa asked, cradling the little thing like a babe. 

"Your dog, little bird," deflected Sandor. "I'm sure you'll have plenty of names for her if she starts whining through the night."

"You wouldn't do that, would you, princess?" Sansa whispered to the little dog.

Sandor snorted. "She's a hound, not a bloody princess."

"She's not a  _hound_ ," protested Sansa, wrinkling her nose. "Farlen's hounds were huge and slobbery. And  _smelly_. You're a proper little lady, aren't you princess?"

"All dogs are slobbery and smelly," Sandor grumbled.

"Lady wasn't."

" _Lady_ was a fucking  _direwolf_ , and if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I'd have never believed that serious, sensible Ned fucking Stark gave wolf pups to his children."

Sandor gulped down his milk, regarding Sansa and the pup warmly. They made a picture of contentment, the beauty seated by the fire, gazing lovingly at the sweet pup that licked her fingers. As he soaked in the sight, it jolted him to realise Sansa might want her own real babes one day. 

 _And it's not like you can give them to her,_ he thought ruefully.  _You're the dog, and she's a princess for true. These days are sweet, but don't get your hopes up that she'll bind herself to you forever._

He pushed the thought away. Safety, safety was all they needed now. Not the details of a far future.

"I thought I might call this one 'Lady' in Pentoshi."

"' _Riña',_ " he recalled.

"Yes. It doesn't seem to suit her."

"She's a scenthound, or would be if she wasn't being cuddled to death and called a princess," Sandor pointed out. "Ilmerio calls her mother  _Pungaera_. What's that? 'Big nose'?"

Sansa laughed, the sound cutting Sandor adrift from his worries for just an instant as it always did. "'Nosy' would be closer to it. I'm sure I'll think of something."

 

The morning was slipping on; Sandor let his chair scrape back and went for his coat.

"I thought about that offer, Sandor," said the girl suddenly. He tensed. It had been a long while since Sansa had uttered his true name in daylight, and it got his attention as it was no doubt meant to. "I think we should go see these barracks of theirs."

Sandor let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding.  "You're sure?"

"As sure as I think I'm ever like to be. I'd like to get the measure of these men before we put our safety into their hands."

"I'll get a message to them. Be ready when I get back tonight."

She nodded just once, then he pressed a kiss to her forehead and lurched off to Ilmerio's yard.

* * *

 

It took Sansa most of the afternoon to  _ready_ herself as Sandor asked. First, she had to find the Lysene woman who worked with the brides on their way to the temple. It was difficult, as she'd only heard the woman's name mentioned in passing by Della and another neighbour, and Sansa had to walk up and down the street foolishly until she spotted the right awning.

Leaving barely an hour later, Sansa forced away the silly grief.   _I did not carry these tears all the way from Westeros. They belong in King's Landing, not Pentos._

She returned to the rooms with a fresh pail of water and mixed the preparation as the Lysene had advised: half a bottle of the black, two drops of red and one drop of purple.

When it was done, she longed for a real silvered mirror instead of the bleary copper sheet that passed for a looking-glass in their straitened circumstances. Sansa felt a stone drop into her stomach at the result. 

 _I look like Arya_. 

When they were girls, back in Winterfell, she had turned a blind eye when Beth and Jeyne spoke cruelly to Arya; they'd called her 'horseface' and compared her unfavourably to Sansa. Sansa had favoured their mother in looks, manners, and temperament, while Arya... Arya looked like Father but lacked his solemn reserve. Arya was like Jon, but she had a  _wildness_ to her that Sansa had once heard Old Nan refer to as "wolf blood" - before Ser Rodrick cut her off with an admonition that had seemed unduly harsh to Sansa.

Now, Sansa could see the resemblance. With her hair worn like this, the eye was drawn across her face differently; it seemed longer, somehow. The fine high cheekbones Sansa had attributed to Mother were not so unlike the sharper ones that belonged to her sister. There was some echo of Arya's face in the shape of the jaw and the curve of brows. It had been there all along, but Sansa had always been distracted by their differences: rich auburn to Arya's brown, serene blue eyes gazing on expressive grey.

_I am much fonder of grey eyes than I used to be._

 

Her hair was a necessary sacrifice. If she were to live a lie in the camp of the Second Sons, she meant for it to be a lie that had a great deal in common with the truth. She meant to be Sansa, but a lowborn Sansa with no great houses in her blood. If she kept her given name, she had to lose her hair.  Her hair was feature Sansa was most proud of; it was the first thing most people commented on when they complimented her. She was unsure how Sandor would react to its loss, though she was never sure how far his attention was directed by things his particularly liked about her, and how far it was driven by his affection for  _her_ , generally.

 

When the hour arrived, Sansa was cleaning up the puppy's latest accident. It was frustrating to try to command her without having decided on a name, though one idea in particular was appealing to her more and more as the day went on. 

Sansa turned her head at the sound of the door.

"Seven hells, Sansa," he gasped, removing his hand from the dagger-hilt. "I barely recognised you."

She rose, skirts rustling back into place, and went to him. A hand went to his masked cheek. "That was rather the point," she said unhappily. 

_He doesn't like it._

It wasn't surprising. Sansa didn't like it either. She watched as he ran his eyes along the sleek black locks that ended just below her ears.

"Good thought, little bird. We should get going," he said gruffly, carefully avoiding her eye. His gaze sharpened on the sight of wet rags by the hearth, though the troubled look did not leave his face. "Named the dog yet?"

"I have, actually," said Sansa lightly. "I'm going to call her  _Dōnae_." 

Sandor's eyes rolled to the ceiling as he searched his memory for the meaning. Sansa decided to save him the bother.

"It means 'sweet one'."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The game reference from last chapter. https://youtu.be/K738V11QOHs?t=3m08s


	10. A Tenth Officer

The walk to the Silver Quarter would take them half the night. They could see its high walls from the hill-brow near their lodgings, in the small square where Sansa bought bread. Though not terribly far as the crow flew, to get there they’d have to skirt the Guild Town that dominated the centre of the city. The Guild Town was the oldest, wealthiest part of Pentos. Its lofty peninsula was flanked by twin harbours and walled with steep bastions. The dome of the Prince’s Palace loomed large in the skyline there, standing apart from the nearby merchant towers thanks to the broad, lush gardens that swaddled the manse. Beyond it, the spires and cupolas of the Temple District descended on the far side to meet the sea. 

 

“We’ll cut through the Temple District,” Sandor said. “That pontoon bridge is back up for some reason.”

“The Daughter-Port needs repairs before winter comes, so it's been closed off,” explained Sansa, referring to the narrow deepwater quay that faced the Temple District.“I’m surprised Ilmerio didn’t know. They’ll need that honey-coloured stone of his if they’re working on the main wall.”

“Ilmerio’s done a deal with some uncle of the Prince. All that blond stone is going to fix the harbour wall.” Sandor paused, glancing at the little bird and the small, sceptical twitch of her eyebrows. “You think he’s selling it on?”

“Only if Ilmerio was foolish enough to give him an obsequiously large discount. You know what they say about the Prince’s maternal house. ' _Hae syz hae istisi sagon.'_ ”

 

Sandor grunted. ' _No better than they ought to be.' Grasping new-made nobles with no sense of decorum - fucking people over in broad daylight with ledgers and fists, not with a quiet word in the right ear after feasting and fine wine._

 

This sort of city gossip was just another reminder of the distance that had grown between the Sansa he knew now and the Sansa he’d left at King’s Landing. He’d pitied that girl almost as much as he revered her; he’d risked his life for that girl, driven by a strong regard that was selfish and private and barely involved her at all. It made him uncomfortable to reflect upon it. It bothered him to realise that the Elder Brother might, in small part, have had the right of it. He’d built a fantasy in his mind of a perfect lady, uncorrupted by the world. It made her infuriating and ignorant to the point of delusion, but also gentle enough to show kindness to a beast like the Hound.

The woman he shared his life with was nothing like that.The _true_ Sansa was sharp and subtle as stiletto blade. Years at a hostile court had primed her to soak up every detail of a situation: every word spoken or left unsaid, the relationships and loyalties of those around her, and a keen eye for the missteps that belied a hidden agenda. She made him laugh. She was passionate in a guileless straightforward sort of way that cut to the heart of him. He’d miss smoothing a hand over her pretty auburn hair in the night, but the short dark hair only called more attention to the fineness of her features. 

_How the fuck did she wreck her crowning glory and end up as perfect as ever?_

 

It seemed unfair on some basic level, albeit an unfairness he was entirely happy to live. While this new appearance would take some getting used to, with the initial shock now past, Sandor found that he did not mislike it. The wolf in her was plainer this way. The way she flashed those white teeth when she made a wicked jest, the expressiveness of her face - she looked less damned _highborn_ somehow, though no less beautiful. He wondered if she’d done than on purpose, too.  She wore an unfashionable dress of some maroon fabric, all practicality with pockets and a high warm collar. Her boots had been expensive: waterproof leather, soft as butter, lacing to the midshin. That she still turned heads even in simple attire sparked a quiet, possessive pride in him. He had a suspicion that he gaped like a lackwit whenever he looked at her, but somehow could not bring himself to give a fuck what anyone might think.

 

* * *

 

The Temple District was the part of Pentos where Sandor still felt like a stranger. The enormous red temple stood off its own plaza, its black marble porticos enclosing three sides of the square. With the sun setting, the city’s largest nightfire was already burning in the centre as they passed. Voices chanted the mantra of the Lord of Light in a jumble of different tongues, echoing through the plaza in a maddening cacophony.

“Look,” Sansa hissed. “It’s the red priestess who took ship with us.”

Sandor did not look. The whole scene made him uneasy, not just because of all the bloody fire. There was a mania to these followers of R’hllor that made them unpredictable. The old burns on his left arm itched just to think of it.

 

They passed the paired temples of the Lysene patron-gods, the Weeping Lady and the Joyful Lord. The silver-blond faithful milled about before their service, the men as pretty as the women. Further on was a tall church for the Drunken Lord of Tyrosh, and a clutch of black-robed Starry Wisdomers. The Qohoriks worshipped in the open air beyond a brick wall, behind which a horse was screaming. 

Sansa tugged on his arm, turning his attention towards a narrow side-street. A plank nailed to the wall had _Vokadrentor Andalos_ painted sloppily onto it, along with an arrow, and Sansa made to follow. He could guess what she'd spotted.

The sept was tiny, even smaller than the perfunctory one he’d seen at Winterfell. At least that sept had been stone-built; this shrine barely as big as the Hermit’s Hole the Elder Brother had lived in back on the Quiet Isle. Before he could stop her, before he could count the risks of meeting other Westerosi, Sansa was pushing on the door.

 “Locked,” she said softly.

Sandor scanned the side of the shrine and found a tattered scrap of paper listing the days when the sept was open. As much as he regretted Sansa’s disappointment, he felt some savage joy to see the gods of his childhood so clearly rejected by the people who first made them up. He wondered what the old fools in Baelor’s crystal crown would have made of it.

_Even the madmen who worship a sky-stone don’t have such a poor showing a this._

Sansa just sighed and took his arm again, ready to return to the road. Sandor felt his mouth twitch in annoyance, mainly with himself. “We can come back in two days, when it’s open. If you’d like.”

The girl opened her mouth, hesitated, and then said, “You don’t mind?”

 _If it would please you, my lady._ “No, little bird, I don’t mind.”

 

* * *

 

The compound of the Second Sons looked like no barracks Sandor had ever seen. It was a manse like any other, except where its neighbours had eunuch-soldiers standing at attention, the Second Sons had only shabby men-at-arms. One of them leered openly at Sansa, until Sandor deflected his attention with a cold glare. 

“Clegane,” he told the steward. “Here for Inkpots.”

 

It seemed the watchmen were not the only part of the establishment that looked worse for wear. The whole manse, while no doubt opulent in its day, was in a state of disrepair. Its marble floors were clean enough, but its rugs were threadbare and its walls scuffed. Even the grey-and-navy company banners bedecking the entrance hall looked frayed and motheaten.

The steward led them through a series of musty-smelling drawing rooms, then down a long hallway lined with crooked portraits. The last in the sequence showing a gaunt man with a thick red-gold beard. There was something cold about the man’s eyes that put Sandor in mind of Tywin Lannister. Next to it hung two empty frames, waiting for their portraits. 

 

The hallway opened into a good-sized banqueting hall panelled in wood. The fat treasurer sat at one of the long tables - not at the High Table on the dais, Sandor noted approvingly - with a misted silver jug and a sheaf of papers. 

“Lord Clegane,” the fat man greeted him, swaying to his feet. “We are pleased to receive you. And your lady wife?”

“Just ‘wife’,” said Sansa with a curtsy. She shot Sandor a sly look, as if daring him to reject the title. He decided not to give her the satisfaction, and let it slide. This time.

“This is Sansa,” he said carelessly.

“Lady Sansa, I have the honour to be Tybero Istarion, paymaster and fourth officer of the Free Company of Second Sons.”

“The honour is mine, my lord,” said Sansa brightly. After a moment, Sandor realised she’d said it in Pentoshi. The big man quirked a smile at her and took two more cups from the sideboard. 

“We are busy men, Lord Clegane, so let us skip straight to business. Your note said you had questions.”

“We’re busy men, _my lord_ ,” Sandor ground out, “so I’ll be blunt. There are plenty in Westeros - and some who’ve fled it, no doubt - who’d like to see my ugly head parted from my shoulders. Why should I make myself a sitting duck for them?” 

Tybero Istarion regarded Sandor calmly, offering no answer.

“And a second question: why does an old company like the Second Sons need a new Master-at-Arms? Surely you have plenty of fighting men of your own, and a few good ones who are getting too old for the battlefield.”

Again, no answer. This time, Sandor let the silence ring in their ears until the Pentoshi spoke.

 

“The answers you seek are very simple, Lord Clegane. I shall start with your second question, on the understanding that this information does not leave your lips beyond our gates. Four moons ago, we had three dozen men who would have slain their own sons for a safe posting in Pentos and the kind of salary that is due to the Tenth Officer of the Second Sons. Four moons ago, I am sorrowful to say, those men died in dragonflame before the walls of Meereen. I cannot tell whether I was blessed to escape with my life, or cursed to escape with the memory of that sight. Our new captain bade me return to Pentos to rebuild our strength, and with the cream of our corps dead on the field, I had to find the best man for the job.”

“As to your safety, Lord Clegane… If your reputation is even half correct, I will consider this investment a good one. And I have a singular urge to protect my investments - with all the steel that gold can muster.”

Sandor said nothing. On the bench next to him, Sansa squeezed his hand; he looked down to see her blue eyes turned imploringly up to him. He thought there was concern in them, but then she gave a tiny nod and turned back to Inkpots.

 _This is it,_ he sensed. _This is where it all turns, for good or for ill. The girl is braver than I am: she's not afraid to make her mind up._

 

“A third question, then,” Sandor rasped suddenly. “Where can we keep the dog?”


	11. An Eleventh Station

When Sandor asked where they could keep the dog, the treasurer of the Second Sons took it as a cue to show them the manse. 

_This is what happens when a man from the Seven Kingdoms builds a Pentoshi manse._

The mish-mash of styles was odd to Sansa's eye. Even a place like the banqueting hall was built with Pentoshi proportions - a narrow room with a very high ceiling, and a gallery running all around the on the upper storey - but in place of the elegant stucco-work that the architect no doubt anticipated, the Second Sons had covered every wall in rich wooden panelling. She eyed the scratched veneer dubiously, wondering if the panels hid pastel-painted mouldings of vines and deities, like the fine townhouses in the Linen Market. The dark wood gave the room a slightly enclosed feel, especially with the peeling chaos of the ceiling fresco to box them in. Sansa didn't know enough about the Second Sons to guess what battle it might depict.

Istarion led them out the doors at the end of the hall, which opened onto the central courtyard. A chill ran through Sansa, and she gasped despite herself.

_I am back in the gardens of the Red Keep._

If not for the opposite colonnade to signal the courtyard's size, Sansa could have forgotten just where she was. It was like stepping into an old nightmare. The pattern of the paths, the choice of flowers and bushes, the placement of trees, even the pool and fountain at the heart of the garden - all were eerily akin to the walled garden she'd walked at Joffrey's court.

 _The Hound was with me then, too._ She looked up at him. His eyes were darting around suspiciously, taking detailed note of his surroundings as always.  _Gods, how differently I see him now. How different he_ is _, now._

Sansa examined the garden with sadness as she realised how carelessly it was tended. Even the pond stank of stagnant water, its grand stone fountain chipped and still. The paymaster led them towards a stone archway, and a yelled curse from beyond it intruded upon the tranquility. She felt Sandor tensing next to her, beholden to a reflex instilled bone-deep. Then followed a series of smacks and thuds - and the unmistakable clatter of wood on stone as another voice yelled, "Yield! Yield!" in the Common Tongue.

 

The training yard was perhaps half the size of the garden quad. At the far end, two shapes were moving in the glow of a brazier.

"A little late for training, is it not?" called Tybero Istarion, mildly.

"What's it to you, Inkpots?"

The man who spoke had clearly come off the better in the exchange they'd overheard. His sparring partner was sprawled on his arse in the darkening yard, his wooden sword several feet away. Sansa thought she could see a glint of blood in his hairline.

"Nothing at all. If anything, it's allowed the new master-at-arms to see the task before him."

"You're old to be fighting with wooden sticks," Sandor rasped.

"Just so. But rumour has it we are short of men," the man snarled. "Sticks suffice when the stakes are first blood."

It crossed Sansa's mind that the Braavosi accent was unusually well-suited to menace as she watched the man stalk away, lithe as a cat. His opponent, still a bit dazed, shook himself back to wakefulness and gathered the fallen practice-swords without a word.

 _This place is a tinderbox - all frustrated pride and needless violence. Will a place like this - men like_  that _-_ _draw Sandor's rage back to the surface?_

 

 

The enormity of this decision was revealing itself with every passing moment. Suddenly, their cramped lodgings in the Lace Quarter seemed like an impossible idyll; a haven from the pressures and politics of martial men and the societies they built. Yet again, Sansa's place in the world would be determined by the man she was attached to.  _Hand's daughter, king's betrothed, traitor's wife, lord's bastard... officer's mistress?_ At least as Mariah, she was expected to have some sort of function. If Sandor had disappeared, she still would have had a social circle and the beginnings of a meagre trade. As wife to an officer of the Second Sons, she could not conceive of how she would pass her days in this decaying palace. She had yet to see even one female.

_Where are the widows of all those men who died in the East? Surely they did not follow their men into the field?_

As the battered young man disappeared into what had to be the armoury, Istarion crossed to the building opposite. Its four stories were fronted with arched galleries on every floor, which Inkpots told them was the officers' barrack.

"The entire top floor belongs to the captain," he explained. "Kaspo is still travelling west, but you should meet him in due course."

"He wasn't at the battle in Meereen?" Sansa piped up.

"He was taken captive at the same time I was, but the Dragon Queen's acceptance of promissory notes extended to every ransom save his." Inkpots sighed ruefully, as though he'd prefer custody of the gold to custody of the captain. "It is done now. Your rooms are just here; allow me to go find a light."

 

From the gallery behind them, the glow of the twilit sky cast a dim light across the threshold. Even in darkness, Sansa could tell the first room alone was about the size of their current quarters. She could make out the shapes of deep chairs and a large fireplace, with a doorway beyond. As Sandor scowled out over the training yard, Sansa tiptoed across the rug, her footprints resonating softly on smooth, well-fitted floorboards of hardwood that neither creaked nor bowed.  Inkpots appeared with a candle as Sansa groped for the doorknob. The bedroom beyond was just as large again, with tall windows that overlooked the perimeter garden. The bed was large - probably not quite large enough for Sandor, but few were - and on seeing it Sansa realised how eager she was to sink into a real featherbed after moons on a pallet.

 

"The lady looks tired," Inkpots observed. "You are more than welcome to stay the night, if you wish. Acquaint yourself with the manse and the men. We will introduce you formally, of course, once you start the post."

"No," said Sandor, though he sounded as weary as Sansa felt. _He's been working in the yard all day, too,_ she remembered.  _He must be exhausted._  "We'd best start back."

"We could give you the use of a horse-"

"No. Nowhere to stable it in the Lace Quarter, else I'd take my own horse. I've a courser stabled down by the Summer Stair."

 _This will be our home,_ she told herself as they treaded the halls back to the main door.  _This is where I will break my fast every day, for the foreseeable future._

 

"Sandor," she said suddenly, when they were almost home. The walk had passed in thoughtful silence, but Sansa realised there would never be a right time for what she was about to say. "I don't mind lying about my house. Or... cutting my hair. But there are some things I don't want to lie about. About... us, for example."

The big man frowned down at her. "What do you mean?" There was a worried sort of an edge to his voice.

"Well, I thought.... maybe we should marry. For true."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is Sandor's POV, obviously!


	12. A Twelfth Vow

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting her to say, save that it wasn't  _that_.

Sandor shook his head to clear it. This was worlds away from the military politics and domestic upheaval that had occupied his mind all day.

"Marry?" he repeated, gaping. The word had an unfamiliar flavour on his tongue, and it lingered as the little bird hesitated, her touch burning through the tunic where she'd taken his arm.

 

"So little about this world is sure," she said quietly. "And still we have managed to find some kind of happiness - or at least, I hope we have both found some kind of happiness. All I know is that if all else were to change, and if I could make only one thing certain, then I would choose not to be parted from you."

 

The breeze had stolen his breath and dried his mouth. His mind screamed at him to do  _something_ , and he settled on covering her hand with his, feeling her cool fingers twitch between his palm and his biceps.

 

"I know that you don't have much time for gods or ceremonies... and the way you see the future might not be quite the same as how I see mine."

There was some point she was dancing around; some way out that she was reluctant to offer. Then it hit him.

 _Herself._ _That it might not be_ marriage _I never considered, but marriage to_ her _specifically._

With effort, Sandor cast his mind back to those three intense evenings he spent with her on the Quiet Isle. She'd told him what she wished for. Four walls and a hearth; he could give her that, true enough. A husband who cared for her - as if he'd felt aught else for most of the time he'd known her. And those other things she wanted in a husband: that he be strong, brave, and gentle. He supposed he could be each of those in some ways, if not others. He'd become stronger of mind, braver in self-regard, and gentler of temper these past few moons. It was Sansa's doing; her influence, not any direct intervention. She'd made him a better man than the Hound and a happier one, too.

_What could she do for a man who was good in the first place?_

The evening's excursion had been like a journey into his past. He'd _been_ that angry Braavosi and his punching-bag, too. He'd walked this road. Sandor was a touch excited about navigating a life he knew well, but with Sansa by his side. He could reclaim the dignity and confidence that flowed from his ability with a sword without losing the quiet joy of his evenings in the little bird's company. Better still, he could look after her the way he'd wished. She could have the small things that had delighted her as a girl: the pastries, the fine clothes, the company of other ladies. The look on her face when she played with the dog would never need to leave it. He'd crawl through shit from dawn to dusk if it would keep that brightness in her eyes. 

 

"Saying some words for a septon won't change a damned thing," said Sandor, clearing his throat. Her face fell, and he realised how badly he'd fucked this already. "You can't think some vows would..."

 _What the fuck are you trying to say, Clegane?_ He cursed every glib-tongued bastard in the world who knew the right words for this.  _I wouldn't leave her, with or without vows. Not unless she wanted me to. And if she did send me packing, no vow would make me force my presence on her._

After all she'd been through, surely she knew what oaths and the like were really worth. He remembered Ned Stark in the throneroom, trusting in his paper shield, and felt annoyance that Sansa still put her faith in such things. In the main it was annoyance with himself, for it was his own failure to make her feel secure that left her wanting the reassurance of such things. He'd told her enough times what he thought of knights, but it seemed a different tack was required.

"Seven hells, Sansa. Do you know why I don't take vows? It's because they assume too much. That world you were talking about, the one that's so unsure - what happens if I say the words, and when spring comes we've changed our minds? It's too late. Either the words matter, and we're stuck together driving each other mad, or the words _don't_ matter and we go live our lives. Look how much the words mattered for King Robert, or to the Kingslayer. Look at what they bought old Ser Barristan."

He'd made himself angry, now. He thought of every vow he'd ever been forced to swear to the Lannisters. There had to be close to a dozen of them, every time his role was changed. There would be more to come with the Second Sons, he knew, though companies dealt in contracts where lords dealt in _loyalty_. And gods? Gods demanded so much more. 

"It's a shame you gave those books back to the Elder Brother. I'd love to find out what kind of shit those septons were forcing into young women's heads."

Sansa's shoulders slumped. He felt her hand slipping out from under his own as her grip on his arm slackened, and he grasped it as softly as he could manage.

"Because if you think I need a septon's _blessing_  to keep wanting what we already have, then I haven't kept you half as informed as I ought." 

 

Slowly, Sansa turned to look at him. He missed the metallic swish of the lamplight in in her hair, but the severe line where her hair ended contrasted pleasingly with the shapeliness of her face. There was hope shining in her big blue eyes. Their pace had slackened to the most leisurely stroll; though they moved like swains in a court garden, a passer-by would only have seen two mismatched peasants on the dim backstreets of Pentos. 

"Those things you once told me you wanted," said Sandor slowly, as calm as he could manage. "A household of your own... a  _family_... you're sure you'd want them with me?"

For the first time since she'd raised the subject, Sansa smiled. "I can't speak for the springtime. But speaking as we are now? I can imagine no-one better."

He swallowed. This vow, he could take. This vow he would never choose to set aside, not as long as it meant something to her. In his heart of hearts he was sure of that.

"Then we'll do it, little bird. If it's what you want." He chuckled, feeling something soar in his chest. "You've already found a sept and everything."


End file.
